Monstrosities Mon Amour 3: Minster Court

Monstrosities Mon Amour

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Monstrosities Mon Amour 3: Minster Court

John Grindrod meets Pomo architecture enthusiast Philip Downer and they encounter CIty of London landmark Minster Court and experience the 1974 Rubettes single Sugar Baby Love

John Grindrod

Jan 31, 2025

Transcript

‘Joyous, fun-coloured, and life-enchancing are very much the qualities we are not looking for at the moment.’

So says Philip Downer, occasional tour guide and the man behind a hugely popular Instagram account on London’s architecture, as he shows me the delights of one of the City of London’s most excessive 1980s landmarks, the crazy gothic fantastia of Minster Court.

Minster Court photographed by Philip Downer

While trapped in the boot of his Austin Maxi I also hear the helium-fuelled hysteria of ‘Sugar Bay Love’, the 1974 falsetto-topped pop song that led to a craze for polyester berets, or possibly not. We talk excess, red window frames and Tin Pan Alley songwriters in the latest edition of Monstrosities Mon Amour.

Theme tune by Lorna Rees and Rufus Rees Coshan. Logo by Richard de Pesando.

Discussion about this podcast

Monstrosities Mon Amour

In Monstrosities Mon Amour we celebrate places and things that have been unfairly monstered in popular opinion. Host John Grindrod will be your excitable guide to a world beyond the lazy stereotypes of crap towns and guilty pleasures. He'll be meeting people who’ll share their enthusiasm for monsters major and minor, places that get a bad press and cultural artefacts that need to be rescued from the bin.

‘Warmly, welcomingly geeky.’ Jude Rogers, Observer

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